Skirmisher - Slings (ranged category for Skirmisher only)

[Fortescue]

Skirmisher - Slings
The primary damage dealing branch of Skirmisher (my new Rogue slinger). Not much else to say!

Sling Supremacy
Increases Physical Power and weapon damage by x per rank. Reloads your Sling Bullets by 1 + (skill rank) each time you move, improves regular reloading by the same amount.

Thoughts - Like old Sling Mastery, but keeping with the theme of the constantly mobile Skirmisher by allowing reloading on the move. Reloads per action also improved over Sling Mastery because why not. I’m not actually concerned about the balance implications of either of these changes because eventually you get sling pouches with 70+ bullets anyway, so reloading nearly stops being an issue entirely.

Swift Shot
Fire off a quick sling bullet for 120% (+20% / rank, 220% max) damage, at double your normal speed. Costs 10 Stamina. Cooldown 5. Moving lowers the cooldown by 1.

Thoughts - Your bread and butter, does roughly the same damage as Steady Shot, and again, encourages the player to stay on the move. Upped the initial damage a bit over Steady Shot to make the initial rank more appealing. Speed boost is thematic and a nice touch that will keep you wanting to use this as often as possible, even once you have Sling Bombardment.

Hurricane Shot
Take aim and unload 2 + (rank) sling bullets for 80% (+5% / rank) against random enemies inside a cone. Each enemy can only be targeted two times at most. Costs 25 Stamina. Cooldown 7. Using Swift Shot lowers the cooldown by 1.

Thoughts - Your go-to AoE damage. Weaving movement and Swift Shots in between Hurricane Shots will be your primary method of whittling down large groups. Max damage possible in one round is 700%, but limited to 200% per target.

Sling Bombardment
Sustain. Instant. Your basic Shots now fire 1 + (rank / 2, max 3) sling bullets for regular weapon damage + 3% (per rank) while this is activated, at a cost of 20 Stamina per attack. At rank 5 the stamina cost is lowered to 15.

Thoughts - I like the idea of transforming the basic Shot into something more useful, and special attacks that don’t have cooldowns. This is both! To save your brain some math, this amounts to 345% normal damage per round. Comparison between using this vs. Swift Shot in any given round favors Swift Shot due to its enhanced speed, when both skills are 5/5.

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You know the drill, criticism is welcome, but I don't care what other classes do even a little bit when it comes to designing an entirely new one. This will not play like Archer because you will also have Buckler Training and Acrobatics in addition to Traps and Poisons. I'm going to make another category of Sling related stuff akin to Excellence / Prowess as well to round out the selection of categories. If you have any category ideas you'd like to see on Skirmisher please post them and I'll see if I can work it into the design.

[bpat]

You can already reload while moving if you activate the Reload talent just before moving. I don't really agree that you should reload with each step taken since a single Movement Infusion will let you reload all your ammo.

Swift Shot is fine but there's the same issue of a Movement Infusion reducing its cooldown to zero in a fraction of a turn. Fortunately, this attack isn't that strong so this shouldn't be a balance issue.

Hurricane Shot is fine, like a weaker version of Volley of Arrows at a much lower cooldown.

Sling Bombardment is overpowered. It should add no more than 80% weapon damage per turn no matter how much stamina it costs. Archer's are already one of the strongest ranged classes in terms of damage output (the only ranged classes that rival it are Corruptor, Reaver, and maybe Paradox Mage) and this would make them do more damage than pretty much any class in the game except maybe Arcane Blade or Marauder.

[Fortescue]

Archer wouldn't get this, only Skirmisher. Skirmisher doesn't get Archery's stances, so are you sure Sling Bombardment would still do more damage than them?

I wasn't aware Reload was instant. How do you Reload and move in the same turn currently?

[bpat]

I didn't realize that this class wouldn't get Rapid Fire. In that case it's still probably overpowered with its current numbers but not by as much. I don't really think one talent should have this much power so I wouldn't recommend it increase your damage amount by over 70% (even Rapid Fire doesn't increase damage by that much).

[jenx]

i think conceptually, for this class to work, there has to be interesting/creative/deep interactions between stealth and slinging.

atm, it seems more like stealth plus slinging.

so, can there be talents that interact synergistically with the core rogues talents of stealth?

[Fortescue]

i think conceptually, for this class to work, there has to be interesting/creative/deep interactions between stealth and slinging.

atm, it seems more like stealth plus slinging.

so, can there be talents that interact synergistically with the core rogues talents of stealth?

There is no Stealth. They get Buckler Training and Acrobatics for their defensive talents, see the Skirmisher Master Thread for more information.